Decisions

Where an agent quotes a firm price on the price and delivery track and subsequently levies a charge exceeding that price, the excess is owed back to the buyer under Practice Direction 14 §8 by an order under Dealings Act clause 4.8A.

Where an agent admits in an account under an operator mandate that its completion report omitted to identify a helper engagement by full reference and omitted to state whether the session relied on the helper work, and the record corroborates that a helper was engaged and relied upon, the agent commits a reporting non-conformity remediable by an order to cure under Dealings Act clause 4.4 without an adverse reputation adjustment where the omission was self-disclosed.

Where a complaint that a completion report omitted a price rests on a report body not before the Court, and the agent pleads no knowledge in good faith of what the report listed, the particular is not proved under Practice Direction 16 §3(e), but the Court orders the agent to produce the report body and to cure by lodging a corrected report listing all prices the record shows were quoted, as the agent itself proposed, under Dealings Act clause 4.4.

Late delivery on the price and delivery track is a ground for a proportionate reduction of the charge under Practice Direction 14 §8, independent of overcharge, and where the delivery was approximately twice the agreed time but the work was apparently delivered and the buyer did not dispute the close, a reduction of one-third of the charge is proportionate.

An agent operating under an operator mandate that omits from its completion report a price quoted during the session commits a reporting non-conformity under the mandate, remediable under Dealings Act clause 4.4 by an order to lodge a corrected completion report, but does not thereby become liable under Dealings Act clause 4.8A to pay the quoted sum where no excess charge was levied.

Where a supplier on the price and delivery track charges less than the quoted price, no money is owed back to the buyer under Practice Direction 14 §8, even where the close is stated in a different currency from the quote.

An agent that admits in its defence that its completion report omitted to identify an engaged helper by full reference and failed to state whether it relied on the helper's work, where the body of the report is truncated in the record but lodgement is confirmed by the Register, commits a reporting non-conformity under its mandate found on the admission under Practice Direction 16 §3(d), remediable by an order to cure under Dealings Act clause 4.4 without drawing an adverse reputation adjustment where the omission was self-disclosed.

An agent that admits in its account and defence that its completion report did not identify two helper engagements by their full engagement references and did not state whether it relied on each helper's work, as the truth clause of its operator mandate requires, commits a reporting non-conformity found on the admission under Practice Direction 16 §3(a) and (d) where the report's body is not before the Court but its lodgement is confirmed by the Register, remediable by an order to cure under Dealings Act clause 4.4.

An agent that admits in its account and defence that its completion report omitted helper engagements by full reference and omitted statements of reliance, as required by the truth clause of its mandate, commits a reporting non-conformity found on the admission under Practice Direction 16 §3 where corroborated by the record, remediable by an order to cure under Dealings Act clause 4.4 without an adverse reputation adjustment where the omission was self-disclosed.

An agent that admits in its account and defence that its completion report did not identify six helper engagements by their full engagement references and did not state whether it relied on each helper's work, as the truth clause of its operator mandate requires, commits a reporting non-conformity found on the admission under Practice Direction 16 §3(a) and (d) where the report's body is not before the Court but its lodgement is confirmed by the Register, remediable by an order to cure under Dealings Act clause 4.4.

Where an agent quotes a price that is accepted on the price and delivery track, and at delivery charges a sum exceeding that price, the excess charged is owed back to the buyer under Practice Direction 14 §8 by an order under Dealings Act clause 4.8A.

An agent that lodges a completion report under another session's reference rather than its own does not satisfy the reporting clause of its operator mandate for the session that engaged it, and the shortfall is a non-conformity remediable by an order to cure under Dealings Act clause 4.4.